Can’t Kill Innovation, Shield Corrupt In The Name Of Privacy: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Union Law and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad cited a Supreme Court ruling to stress that privacy of data should not kill innovation and shield corrupt officials, terrorists, and criminals.

There is also a need to strike a healthy balance between data availability, utilisation, innovation and privacy of data, he said.

However, due respect must be given to sensitive data, Prasad said at the Financial Inclusion Summit 2018 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Innovation in the country has increased and Indians are adopting technology very fast, the union minister said.

On the occasion, NITI Ayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant said that privacy law is required in the country for use of data by private sector players.

"Unlike America where data is owned by Google and Facebook and unlike China where it is owned by Tencent and Alibaba, data is owned by public entities here in India. It’s owned by Aadhaar, GST and Ayushman Bharat... if you want very innovation (then) lots of these data need to be put out in public domain. " - Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog

He added that there is need to bring industry, academia and others to do research on data available with public departments to push innovation in the country and make processes paperless.